Zoom Airlines

[Tonic Please]

Flying to Halifax on 26th from Gatwick with said airline.

I'm interested to know of people's ideas and experiences of the airline. They are relatively new, and I have never flown by them before but the price was a jaw-dropper. Professional website, reliable phone service etc, so I assume this will be reflected onboard.

Regards

Dan

[concorde001]

Click below to go onto the Skytrax website - lots of reviews for Zoom available. Seems like a decent airline.

http://www.airlinequality.com/Forum/zoom.htm

Hope this helps. ;)

[Tonic Please]

That's wonderful. Thanks very much indeedy.

Dan.

[Brilliant Stuff]

I am using them as well in September.

[Married a Canadian]

Tonic Sorry to say I would not recommend them.

My wife flew from Canada with them the week before my wedding. She was flying from Toronto into Gatwick. I had arranged onward flights from Heathrow with BA up to Aberdeen about 3 hours after the scheduled arrival of the Zoom flight.

One week before she was due to fly Zoom changed the schedules and her flight was due in 3 hours later than planned (after a stop in Cardiff). I rang the airline to ask how they could do this at such short notice and they told me it was in their rights to do so. When I asked about passengers who may have made onward travel arrangements they told me that was not their problem as they do not have partner airlines and were under no obligation to meet connecting code shares. When I told them I worked in the industry and didn't see how it was customer friendly to change flights at such short notice..I got the standard "if you are in the industry you would understand" line.

Oh and her luggage arrived damaged and Zoom absolved themselves. And my sister in law left her duty free in the luggage bin by mistake. She realised once she got to customs so went back to the plane to find the cleaning crew had already swiped it. Again on asking Zoom staff if they could question the cleaning crew they absolved themselves of any responsibility.

I may be the minority..infact given the expansion of Zoom and their no doubt cheap fares I am the minority. But they are like the Easyjets and Ryan airs...they aren't part of an alliance and their fares do the talking.....if something goes wrong you are on your own. Best of luck.

Oh my first live air traffic control call in Canada was to a Zoom plane. I told my trainer that I didn't like them and he engineered it so I would talk to one first!!

[Avman]

Married a Canadian, although I sympathise for all the bad luck you and your family had, I fail to see that any of the above was Zoom's fault or responsibility, and reason to condemn the airline. You may be in the industry, but fairly new and, with all due respect, fairly ignorant by the looks of things. No airline assumes responsibility for missed connections unless they have an interline agreement with the connecting carrier. No airline will accept responsibility for personal effects left on board the aircraft. All airlines reserve the right to change schedules (and this is in the small print), as did BA with me only a few weeks ago. Many pax fly with bags which are too flimsy for air travel (they will get thrown around a tad) and will find them damaged no matter which airline they travel on.

I have never travelled with Zoom, but I consider your reasons to avoid them as unfair and invalid.

[trainer too 2]

When I told them I worked in the industry and didn't see how it was customer friendly to change flights at such short notice..I got the standard "if you are in the industry you would understand" line.


If you worked in the industry you should know that if you book two seperate flights with two seperate airlines the person on the line was 100% right. Not nice but it happens. :rolleyes:

[YYZ]

I went with them to Toronto last year as they were cheaper and had my schedule changed at the last min.

Also, they use the 767 which is nice, but I have generally always used Canadian Affair to book my flights, which is usually on a TC 757 with extra leg room, makes all the difference on a long flight! & only £20 more!

YYZ

[jettesen]

Damage to bags is caused by the ground handlers which are nothing to do with the airlinbe ( unless they are self handling!) . So Zoom is correct in implying that its not their fault. Same as leaving things on board the aircraft. You are told on landing to check the overhead lockers and the seatpocket and overhead lockers before leaving the aircraft. but hey - if you don't listen to the pa's you only have yourself to blame. You can't blame zoom for all your misfortunes. P.s 3 hours isnt a lot of time to change aircraft / airline in london either!!!! Epecially with a transfer to Heathrow. So all the evidence leads to your mistakes not theirs

[Married a Canadian]

Fair comments guys. Baggage and lost luggage...I agree (twas my inlaws problems). And it only seemed worse I am sure cos of the scheduling problems.

However...an airline changing schedules the week before a flight is due I still believe to be showing a lack of appreciation for what passengers may have planned as onward travel arrangements. For Zoom it was about YYZ to LGW so no probs for them. For other passengers......it may be further...by air, rail, or bus.

Avman...you are right an airline that dosen't have any partners dosen't have to worry about connection arrangements. But Zoom changed the flight schedule by 3 hours (which is a lot of time when it comes to travel arrangements) only a week before a flight is scheduled. To me that showed not much appreciation for what passengers do before or after a flight. Let us say that someone had booked tickets on a train from Gatwick up North on a supersaver or something. Then the changed schedule means they will miss that train and their ticket becomes invalid on the next available IF their is a next available. Or an onward flight..or bus journey etc. Or that 3 hours means you arrive in rush hour and have to hit the M25 in its full glory.That is the type of inconvenience I found and whether the airline was in its rights or not I found the lack of sympathy off putting and unfriendly. All I wanted to hear was "Sorry about the inconvenience...we can offer you XXX instead"

BTW I am not new to the industry nor am I "ignorant" of what goes on. I have been victim to schedule changes myself and have discovered the reasons for them. I reiterate though that I thought one week before travel with no alternatives offered was not very customer friendly be it "100% right" or not. That looks good in print but when you are on the wrong end of it is bloody frustrating.This was exaggerated by the fact I was getting married that week.

Great thing about PPRUNE though is that it is only an opinion. I am glad to be proven wrong and I hope Zoom prove me wrong. Their success at present shows they are doing something right. And their fares cannot be argued with.

[cossack]

I've used Zoom for one return trip to the UK (and MyTravel for 2, BA and AC for one each.) Zoom rescheduled our outbound to 3 hours earlierand via YHZ, 2 days prior. We turned up at check in and they said they couldn't contact all pax, so it was back to the original time but still via YHZ. They gave us a $20 meal voucher due to the "late" departure and the flights were fine.
My MIL has used them 5 times now in the last 2 years always without hitch or complaint and has 2 more trips booked already. (Yes she's here a lot and I work lots of overtime!)
An airline with only 4 aircraft is always going to be suseptible to delays a rescheduling due to equipment issues.
As a rule, you get what you pay for, but I can't find fault with their service and value.

[EI-CFC]

However...an airline changing schedules the week before a flight is due I still believe to be showing a lack of appreciation for what passengers may have planned as onward travel arrangements.

As difficult as may make life for some, it's still not Zoom's problem. You pay them to get you from Airport X to Airport Y - after that, their responsibility ends.

[jettesen]

My gut feeling is that they did apologise for the inconvenience but you were just too busy shouting off at the poor person at the other end of the phone to listen to what he/she said

[Married a Canadian]

Jettesen

Unfortunately they didn't apologise. I did give them a chance to aswell and I did listen to what they had to say. I suppose it just depends who the customer service agent on the day was. They must have had a bad time of it and then I come on asking them what is going on (politely I might add) and they had probably had enough. As a customer I thought I had a right to know.

The original thread just asked for experiences aboard Zoom. Unfortunately mine was a negative so that is all I posted. It takes all types to form an opinion though and luckily most others have had good things to say...therefore Zoom seem to be on the whole reliable airline.

Will I fly with them again. Doubtful...I am a BA man myself...especially as we get staff discounts on them. I've never had a problem with them although I know they may one day lose my baggage, do a shocking schedule change, miss a connection etc etc.

Problem is now with so much choice of airlines. I am more likely to go with the carrier that has not let me down yet. Interesting to note that a couple of other posters have also said their schedules were changed by Zoom.

[SeamusCVT]

Married a Canadian, I was always under the impression that if an airline changed their schedule giving less than two weeks notification before the affected flight then each passenger is entitled to the equivalent of 250€ Denied Boarding Compensation? Please, anybody, do correct me if I am wrong

[rsutt1]

SeamusCVT
the 250 would probably only count for eu airlines, they have plenty of ways out of it, probably blamed it on weather. lol